Mavis Staples<\/a> is known as many things: soul hitmaker, civil rights trailblazer, 21st-century torchbearer of American gospel music, roots music luminary, world-class entertainer, and singular lead singer of her family band, the Staple Singers. But throughout her career, Staples has also proven to be a superb interpreter of song. From her teenaged take on standards like \u201cUncloudy Day\u201d and \u201cWill the Circle Be Unbroken,\u201d her Seventies showstopping rendition of \u201cThe Weight,\u201d or her 1984 cover of the Talking Heads\u2019 \u201cSlippery People,\u201d Mavis has always had a knack for taking songs the public knows and making them utterly her own.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tSuch is the premise for Staples\u2019 stunning new album,\u00a0Sad and Beautiful World<\/em>. Staples transforms disparate material across genres and decades \u2014 some well known standards, some semi-obscure originals \u2014 into her most powerful statement as a solo artist in more than a decade. The album further cements Staples alongside Bettye Lavette and Willie Nelson in the pantheon of great American song interpreters still doing great work later in life.<\/p>\n\n\tMore than that, this gentle collection of covers by everyone from Frank Ocean to Gillian Welch to Sparklehorse serves as a survey course on her storied 72-year(!) recording career. There\u2019s the nod to the Staples\u2019 Muscle Shoals record-making (Eddie Hinton\u2019s album-closing \u201cEverybody Needs Love\u201d,) her earliest roots in Chicago gospel (\u201cSatisfied Mind,\u201d made famous by Mahalia Jackson), and her album-opening cover of Tom Waits\u2019 \u201cChicago\u201d that channels the ear she\u2019s always had for her own contemporaries. Meanwhile, Mavis\u2019 covers of songwriters who could be her grandchildren (indie rocker Kevin Morby, Frank Ocean), is a nod to her recent role as patron saint of for several younger generations.<\/p>\n
\n\tBrad Cook, who produced Waxahatchee\u2019s last few records, is the latest in the long list of hip dudes paired with Staples over the past few decades. The arrangements are sparse, breezy, clearing the path for Mavis\u2019 voice, which has only gathered gravitas and richness.\u00a0Sad and Beautiful World<\/em>\u00a0finds Mavis, 86, exploring, rediscovering, and poking holes at her lifetime of righteous optimism. On the title track, she sounds weathered and world-weary singing about how fast the days go \u201cspeeding<\/em>\u00a0past.\u201d She imbues Morby\u2019s \u201cBeautiful Strangers,\u201d with its references to mass shootings and death, with the hard-earned grief of someone who\u2019s experienced profound loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n\n\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tAt times, Staples\u2019 reckoning and zen reflectiveness on\u00a0Sad and Beautiful World<\/em>\u00a0feel like a photo-negative of the grimly dark late records by Leonard Cohen: Like those collections, Mavis\u2019 latest is a document of a legend brimming with life even as they directly confront their own mortality. But Mavis comes to the opposite conclusions, drawing even more depth and power in her faith, even, or especially, as she finds it fractured.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tThat faith comes across clearly on her cover of Cohen himself (\u201cAnthem\u201d). Listen to her gather strength as the track progress: the way her voice cracks with emotion when she sings the line \u201cthey\u2019re going to\u00a0hear<\/em>\u00a0from me,\u201d the way she summons 250 years of American history in her phrasing of a single word\u2014thundercloud<\/em> \u2014 halfway through the mournful, horn-filled R&B arrangement.\u00a0<\/p>\nBut it\u2019s on \u201cHuman Mind\u201d that Staples lays out her philosophy most plainly. It\u2019s the sole original written (by Allison Russell and Hozier) specifically for this project, and it shows: Of all the songs written for Mavis in recent years, none speak to her radiant work better. Staples\u2019 belief sounds battered but beautiful: \u201cEven in these days I find\/This far down the line,\u201d she sings, \u201cI find good in us,\u00a0sometimes<\/em>,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>her voice hovering over that final word. It\u2019s as if she\u2019s reminding herself that even when her own hope in humanity has been cracked, she can find a way to let the light get in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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